Chris Seaman Named Robert E.R. Huntley Professor of Law Seaman joined the Washington and Lee Law faculty in 2012.  His research and teaching interests include intellectual property, property, and election law and voting rights.

By Law Communications
May 25, 2023

W&L Law professor Christopher B. Seaman has been named to the Robert E.R. Huntley Professorship in Law. His appointment becomes effective July 1, 2023.

Seaman joined the Washington and Lee Law faculty in 2012.  His research and teaching interests include intellectual property, property, and election law and voting rights, with a particular focus on intellectual property litigation and remedies for the violation of intellectual property rights. Since 2017, he has served as Director of the Frances Lewis Law Center, the Law School’s center for intellectual life and faculty research support.

“Professor Seaman’s scholarly research and teaching place him among our most distinguished and accomplished faculty on campus. Chris is also highly engaged in supporting our students and community with extensive and selfless service,” said Dean Melanie Wilson.

The Robert E.R. Huntley Professorship was created by the Board of Trustees to honor former Washington and Lee University President Huntley, who served from 1968 to 1983. Huntley also served as Dean of the Law School from 1967-1968, and before that, he spent ten years as a member of the faculty. The Huntley Professorship was held previously by Emeritus Professor Doug Rendleman.

“I am deeply humbled to be named the Robert E.R. Huntley Professor of Law, particularly in light of President Huntley’s distinguished career at W&L,” Seaman said.  “It’s an honor to follow in the shoes of my distinguished colleague Doug Rendleman, especially since we share a scholarly interest in remedies.”

Professor Seaman’s intellectual property-related scholarship has appeared in a variety of law reviews and journals, including the Virginia Law Review, the Iowa Law Review, the Washington Law Review, the Wake Forest Law Review, the BYU Law Review, the Hastings Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. His most recent article, “Beyond Trade Secrecy: Confidentiality Agreements That Act Like Noncompetes,” is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal.

Seaman’s empirical study of willful patent infringement and enhanced damages was selected as a winner of the Samsung-Stanford Patent Prize competition for outstanding new scholarship related to patent remedies, and his co-authored article on patent injunctions at the Federal Circuit was chosen as a winner of the Federalist Society’s Young Legal Scholars Paper Competition. He received the John W. Elrod Law Alumni Faculty Fellowship for Teaching in both 2014 and 2019 and was named an Ethan Allen Faculty Fellow for scholarship in 2015.

As Law Center Director, Seaman organizes all of the Law School’s scholarly workshops and administers a significant budget to support faculty research projects. In addition, he has served on numerous critical faculty hiring committees and supported students by supervising journal notes, advising student organizations and through his service on the judicial clerkship committee. He was elected by the student body as Faculty Member of the Year for 2013-2014.

Professor Seaman received his B.A. in 2000 from Swarthmore College and his J.D. in 2004 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was an Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and a recipient of the Edwin R. Keedy Award.  After a judicial clerkship with the Honorable R. Barclay Surrick of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, he practiced intellectual property law at Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago from 2005-2009, where he represented clients in patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret litigation in federal and state courts.  Prior to joining Washington and Lee’s faculty, Professor Seaman was a Visiting Assistant Professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

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